


Disney Meta

by ThoughtfulFangirl



Category: Beauty and the Beast (2017), Moana (2016), Rogue One - Fandom
Genre: Essay, Gen, Meta, tumblr crosspost
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-16
Updated: 2018-12-16
Packaged: 2019-09-20 09:37:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 3,430
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17020242
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThoughtfulFangirl/pseuds/ThoughtfulFangirl
Summary: Crossposting meta from Tumblr





	1. Moana: Identity in the Face of Loss

I saw a post recently talking about how identity is a huge part of Moana. I don’t know that I read the whole thing, so there’s a fair chance this was mentioned, but I feel like the post was short.

I think it’s more specific than identity as its theme. It’s your identity in the face of losing a part of yourself—or something that seems a part of yourself.

Moana’s desire to go beyond the reef and growing up unable to is a missing part of her. Very young, she is literally invited to join the ocean. What kind of lasting impression would that leave on a child even if they couldn’t remember it (though Moana could, remarking she thought it a dream). On top of being kept from an ocean that invited her in, it’s implied there’s a sort of genetic memory of being a voyager. The whole island, in a sense, lives without a part of them.

Her father too lives with a sense of loss. He once too had hopes and dreams for the ocean beyond the reef, and that hope was snatched from him as well as his childhood friend. And this helps shape Moana, because it’s her father who keeps her from the invitation the ocean offered her. He doesn’t know that it would have been safe for her, but he keeps her from that nonetheless.

So for the beginning of the movie and most of Moana’s life, she’s living with a sense of not being whole. And what I think makes her so special is that in the face of all that, she remains herself. She still has hope; she still finds joy; she still believes in herself and her people—she doesn’t stop being herself because she doesn’t have some part of it. And when she does get to embrace that part of her and go beyond the reef and be almost one with the ocean, she’s without her family. She loses her grandmother, and her parents are far away. She gets to experience something that few others in the movie get to—not being whole but being entirely thrilled with what she’s experiencing and being at any given time.

On the other hand, you have, again, her father who, while it seems implied is still a good father and husband and chief, a part of him closes off. He develops unhealthy anger at the ocean and his daughter’s desire in that regards. He blinds himself to other solutions to the point of threatening to burn the voyaging ships when he realizes Moana has found them. Regardless, he at least seems to retain a general sense of self, raising Moana in a loving family and teaching her his way. It seems likely that in most other respects, he was a good, nurturing parent. 

Maui, despite having a whole song where he praises himself and celebrates his deeds, has lost his sense of self. He has no worth, purpose, or identity without his hook. He can’t be the hero of humans without it, and he can’t do or be good without it. When he reclaims it again, he struggles with reconciling who he is with who he wants to be and where the hook fits into this. Moana has to walk him through becoming comfortable in that skin again. 

So it’s so potent when Moana asserts to Maui that he is worthwhile even without the hook. He can still be himself and a hero without it.  
And it’s chilling when she tells Te Fiti: “This is not who you are” even as Te Fiti still has not been reunited with her heart. Moana demands that Te Fiti take a moment to find her inner self before she returns it to Te Fiti, and Te Fiti does, and it’s so incredibly beautiful.

I’ve only seen it once and hope to see it again soon, but I was a little bit annoyed when Maui just gets his hook back after everything he went through. But with this in mind, I don’t think I’m perturbed anymore. Until the moment that Maui took the action that resulted in the hook being destroyed, he couldn’t find himself without it. But we don’t become undone because we lose bits and pieces of ourselves. We’re going to go through life losing bits and pieces of ourselves all the time, and we become more Us when we accept who we are without them.

And this narrative wasn’t about punishment. That’s clear when Te Fiti readily accepts Maui’s apology. It’s not even about justice. How much damage did Maui do even though he never intended it? Justice would dictate that he should somehow be punished. It would narratively mean that he shouldn’t have gotten his hook back at the end of the movie.

Instead though, it’s about the constant journey of self discovery. Sometimes gaining one thing means losing another; sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes you can only be whole and be entirely yourself if you’re willing to live without some part of yourself…  
I feel like I’m getting a bit, i don’t know, philosophic? here. So I’ll try to leave it roughly at that.

Moana is just such a beautiful character. Maui grows distant and petulant and hopeless without his hook, and Te Fiti is filled with rage and becomes vengeful without her heart. Moana’s father becomes distant and cold, at times, and definitely more cynical, when he loses his hopes and dreams.

But Moana perseveres. Moana found herself in everything she did. It didn’t stop her from hoping or dreaming or wanting, but she didn’t grow vengeful nor grew rage in her heart. She wasn’t petulant. Because those aren’t things Moana is.

When Moana couldn’t have the ocean, she learned to embrace the part of her which would one day be chief. 

When Moana had the ocean but not her family or personal security, she learned how to be independent and sail the ocean.

She wanted always to be herself and be good and special and her… and she did just that.


	2. Moana: The Ocean's Storm

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Musings on the movie, originally posted to Tumblr 05/31/17

Early on in Moana, her canoe tips over, and she asks the ocean for help, but the ocean doesn’t respond. 

It’s one of the few times Moana is in need of aid that the ocean seemingly doesn’t help Moana. 

So what do we think? Did the ocean think creating a storm to whisk her to Maui’s island was helpful? 

Or was the ocean unable to help due to being buffeted around by some storm god? 

I can’t decide what I like better. The ocean having a different, non-human perspective on ‘helping.’ Or, forces at work that the movie doesn’t feel the need to explicitly state, but still gives the feel of a presence of more gods/entities playing a role in the adventure!   
________________________

I think for now I’m decided on it being the ocean’s way of getting her to Maui’s island. She wakes Moana up from sleep when she’s off course, and that damn chicken keeps causing problems. So she takes matter into her own hands. I like to imagine her as impatient just then. 

And then of course after Maui joins up, the ocean pretty much forces Maui to teach Moana how to sail on her own, so the ocean doesn’t need to exert such effort. Because one of the reasons I contemplated otherwise was because… well, how does an ocean START a storm like that? You know? It must have been a big ordeal for her, and she doesn’t want to have to do that again. 

But I’m still open to other theories. ^_^


	3. Gaston Reads as a Closeted Gay Man

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted to Tumblr 03/26/17

I just went and saw the new Beauty and the Beast. It’s rather amusing. After the announcement about LeFou, I remember reading someone’s prediction as to how his characterization was going to play out, and it legit did. Beat by beat. I mean, what other way would Disney have done it of course? But… yeah… 

On that note… and not to say this is a good thing per se, but during the Gaston song, I got the strong impression that Gaston would be more than happy to have LeFou as his companion. I don’t know, nothing about the performance made me feel like Gaston felt anything at all—even lust—for Belle other than the desire to ‘win’ over the ‘girl’ who everyone thinks is ‘the best.’ The only line that remotely felt like Gaston genuinely having any interest in anyone other than himself or LeFou was the ‘remember the widows’ line. 

But he was more than happy to have LeFou lounge across the back of his chair like a cat. The only thing to cheer him was LeFou serenading him. He was more than responsive to all of LeFou’s touches and embraces. In fact, the one where LeFou asks ‘too much?’, when Gaston is legit embracing him and LeFou is holding his arms, that was a joint effort. That was not just LeFou. Gaston just backpeddaled away from it when LeFou asked him about it (probably because he was confused how it got so far when he never would have dared to dream…). 

He felt very much to me like a man trying desperately to keep up pretenses, most especially to himself. While in the animated film, LeFou felt like a resignedly put-up-with tag-along, he felt like a genuinely valued comrade in this in a way no other person was for Gaston. In fact, the moment LeFou passes on the task of rubbing Gaston’s ears, Gaston is alarmed to realize it’s not LeFou—well before he realizes it’s some other (grimy) dude. 

I don’t know that this take away/interpretation does the movie any credit. If this were the case, it would still be giving us only villainesque queer representation with the primary villain’s motives stemming from his queerness. I’m sure too it wasn’t at al intentional by anyone writing the script (who knows if the actor did it intentionally… though doubtfully). Still, it was interesting to realize that that interpretation felt more organic than any other being attempted on screen to explain his actions.


	4. Rogue One: “I’ve Never Had the Luxury of Political Opinions”

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Originally Posted to Tumblr 01/08/17

I want to talk about Jyn Erso. There’s honestly so much I want to say about her, especially in regards to how I’m seeing fandom interpreting her and how I disagree. This quote in particular stands out. It seems to be one of the most common pieces of dialogue I have seen used to demonstrate the character interpretation I don’t agree with, which is that she is, on some level, innately pessimistic and hard come to hope. 

What we know of Jyn’s past is that she spent her first couple of years in a prominent family of the Empire. We get a brief glimpse of this in her flashback/dream/memory. Her father and mother are in a parlor with Krennick, and Galen puts her back to bed. 

At some point, presumably shortly after this, Galen and Lyra(sp?) run away from the Empire with Jyn and find a remote planet to live simple lives. It’s explicitly outside of political actions and probably the happiest and safest feeling of her life. Until Krennick’s ship appears. 

Lyra contacts Saw Gerrera, a rebel militant, and sends him to find her daughter. Jyn is then raised by a man who seems to define himself by his politics—by his rebel politics. Anti-Empire rhetoric became the air she breathed for how many years as she fought alongside him and mingled with his people? 

And then Saw left her. Alone. She had to make her own way, and what are the chances that growing up feeling it’s 100% normal to spout anti-empire rhetoric quickly put her life in danger when she was on her own, as she moved from place to place? You can’t effectively rebel alone. Even Galen, for his massive, single handed rebellious act, did not manage it on his own, and even with the little help he had, he still died. 

Jyn had to learn to fit into the Empire for survival. 

While many people seem to read her quote: “I’ve never had the luxury of political opinions” as her not caring—being apathetic, I personally feel, they have missed the context of why she makes this statement (we’re not getting to see her better self here). Saw abandoned her because he couldn’t protect her from rebels. She didn’t have the luxury to agree with the Empire then. After being abandoned, alone and with no one, she couldn’t afford not to. It’s not a simple matter of morals or ideals, but of survival. 

So she’s not saying this out of apathy but out of survival. In fact, up until they leave Jedha, everything we see her do in the film are acts of survival. (And I don’t think this is Only true of her. In fact, I think one of the possibly inadvertent messages of the movie is how complex ‘political privilege’ is. My point isn’t to redeem her stance, but to contextualize it. We recognize Bodhi didn’t have this privilege, and he actively served the Empire for who knows how long, but his hope—seemingly given to him by Galen, just like Jyn—hasn’t been questioned, and his turn-face to hope isn’t questioned.) 

I don’t know what people could have expected of a woman we first meet as an adult in prison, who is broken out of jail only to be blackmailed into helping these people she doesn’t know meet with her father-figure in order to get to her actual father. No shit she’s not sunshine and roses and filled with hope. 

I’ve seen a lot of frustrations with Jyn’s sudden character shift, and how it seems out of place, but again, I can’t help but feel these people didn’t quite see it how I did. 

Up until Jyn sees the hologram of her father expressing his love for her, she’s lost everyone she’s cared about and hasn’t once been in a situation in the film where she has chosen for herself. For a good chunk of the film, at least on the surface, Jyn’s agency is seriously lacking (or would have been if not for Cassian), because her strings were being pulled by those around her. 

[As soon as I have access, a pic of her freaking face as she watches the hologram will be inserted here because damn, if that isn’t reignited hope, I don’t know what is.] 

Her finding out her father is alive, hasn’t abandoned her in his heart, and has worked under dangerous conditions to give hope to the Alliance… it doesn’t surprise me one bit that she begins to feel hope in herself as well, and relentlessly tries to pursue that hope when so far, all she’s had is desolation and loneliness. 

There are several things about the writing of that movie that I felt could have used work, but Jyn finding hope in her father is not one of them. 

Honestly, I suppose this thinking kind of irks me because I want to see these kind of turn-arounds normalized. How many people who eventually rebelled starting out thinking it impossible? That they can’t make a difference? That they don’t have the privilege? How many people endure sufferings that harden them? Paralyze them? We need people to have the capacity to suddenly find that spark of hope in themselves and commit to a better world, even when everything is stacked against them, or else who would man Alliance ships? How many people are born with the kind of hope Luke and Finn and Rey have?

image  
In regard to Jyn again though, I honestly read both her statements “don’t have the privilege of political opinions” And “It’s not a problem if you don’t look up” in my first watch as rather snide. In the first scenario, she was being held prisoner. I got the distinct impression she felt pressed into a corner and made the statement to divert that particular part of the conversation. In the case of Saw, I felt the words were meant to be cutting; he had hurt her deeply, and on some level, she wanted to hurt him back still. 

And honestly, I can understand the argument of, ‘but that’s what the movie is showing us… having her say.’ Honestly, that’s fair, but I guess I feel differently because her actions spoke opposite her words. Despite being essentially a prisoner, she had opportunities to walk away. She had a blaster, Cassian left her behind when he went to make contact in Jedha. She wanted to see this through, for whatever reason; the rebellion was still in her. She just had to admit it to herself. 

Honestly, my read was that she spent a lot of the first half of the movie looking for a good excuse to hope again but being terrified of doing so prematurely. Isn’t that what most of us do? We want to see the world be a better place, but what’s the point of trying if it feels like we’re alone? Feels like there’s no hope? But I think Jyn finally found something greater than the terror at uprooting her life for such a difficult cause when she watched a hologram just outside Jedha.


	5. Rogue One: Feelings!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted to Tumblr 01/18/17

Okay, because I’m having feels, I just gotta talk about the three most heart wrenching moments in the film, the ones that brought literal tears to the eyes of the woman who has gone six straight years without having a legit cry. 

III. There are a couple moments like this, but they all feel like they’re building to this, and it breaks my heart so much. Bodhi is desperately trying to get the communications wire to send the so-important message and makes that frantic run to the ship. One of the unnamed rebels who has been working with him to comunicate with those on the ground to get the master switch turned on, sees Bodhi bolt through open ground toward the ship to carry out the mission. This unnamed but wonderful man either realizes what Bodhi is doing is very, very important and/or (probably or) is compelled to protect Bodhi, so jumps up from behind his barricade to get off some cover fire to divert attention from Bodhi and protect him as he makes the run to the ship. Almost immediately, this man gets shot down, but Bodhi makes it. Those moments really showcase both the comrades-in-arms thing as well as their dedication to the cause. 

II. The fight is essentially over. They’re hurt and stumbling, filled with hope after sending the priceless information to those who can make use of it, and collapse onto the beautiful beach. It’s quiet and still, but off in the distance is a golden mushroom cloud. Cassian and Jyn’s gentle looks, their reassurances to each other, their need to hold each other, the look in Jyn’s eyes as she watches her beautiful doom rush toward her, finally feeling like she could have had a future with someone, and watching it end, but knowing what she did would enable so many others the future she was no longer going to have. Their being so aware of what’s coming, still full of what they’d just done, clinging to each other other as shining golden death envelops them. Holy shit. 

I. MY SPACE HUSBANDS HOLY SHIT! Just, everything about this sequence. Chirrut leaving cover, Baze screaming for him to come back. Baze staying behind, being probably a bit too afraid to step out, but also holding his breath and believing like he never has before, because he has to, in the force and his husband’s faith. 

And then Chirrut lays dying, and despite everything, Baze runs to him, holds him, pleads for him to stay. Chirrut whispering that it’s okay, that if they are one with the force, they will find each other again in the next world. BAZE PICKING UP CHIRRUT’S PRAYER. Holy shit. Fucking slay me. Baze making sure those words were with Chirrut as he fade out—practically serenading him, and then wrapping those words around himself, making them his. If believing in the force means he can find his husband again, even in a different reality, then he would believe! I just… I can’t with that. Baze you break me heart Baze why?   
And then recklessly, blindly going back into battle, and that moment, right before he goes, looking back at Chirrut, having one last moment of mourning over his husband’s death before leaving the world himself—to be with him. 

Unf! This movie… it did tragic right… imo 

MY HEART!


End file.
